Overview

The majority of Australians or their ancestors immigrated within the past four centuries, with the exception of the indigenous population and others from outlying islands who became Australian through expansion of the country.
Despite its multi-ethnic composition, the culture of Australia held in common by most Australians can also be referred to as mainstream Australian culture, a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of British and Irish colonists, settlers, and immigrants.[citation needed]

As a result of many shared linguistic, historical, cultural and geographic characteristics, Australians have often identified closely with New Zealanders in particular. Furthermore, elements of Indigenous, American, British, and more recent immigrant customs, languages, and religions have also combined to form the modern Australian culture.[28]

Ancestries

In the 2016 Australian census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were:[N 1][29][30]

European

Today, Australians of European (including Anglo-Celtic) descent are the majority in Australia, estimated at approximately 76% of the total population in 2016.[32][33][34][35]
Historically, European immigrants had great influence over Australian history and society, which resulted in the perception of Australia as a Western country.[36][37]

Although some observers stress Australia's convict history, the vast majority of early settlers came of their own free will.[38] Far more Australians are descended from assisted immigrants than from convicts, the majority being British and Irish.[39] About 20 percent of Australians are descendants of convicts.[40] Most of the first Australian settlers came from London, the Midlands and the North of England, and Ireland.[41][42][43] Settlers that arrived throughout the 19th century were from all parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland, a significant proportion of settlers came from the Southwest and Southeast of England, from Ireland and from Scotland.[44]Anglo-Celtic Australians have been highly influential in shaping the nation's character. By the mid-1840s, the numbers of freeborn settlers had overtaken the convict population. In 1888, 60 percent of the Australian population had been born in Australia, and almost all had British ancestral origins. Out of the remaining 40 percent, 34 percent had been born in the British Isles, and 6 percent were of European origin, mainly from Germany and Scandinavia.[45] In the 1840s, Scots-born immigrants constituted 12 percent of the Australian population. There were 1.3 million British migrants to Australia in the period from 1861–1914, of whom 13.5 percent were Scots. 5.3 percent of the convicts transported to Eastern Australia between 1789 and 1852 were Scots.[46] By 1850, there were 290,000 Aboriginal Australians. The European population grew from 0.3 percent of the population of the continent at 1800 to 58.6 percent in 1850.[47]Germans formed the largest non-British community for most of the 19th century.[48] The census of 1901 showed that 98 percent of Australians had Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins, and was considered as "more British than Britain itself".[49] Between 1901 and 1940, 140,000 non-British European immigrants arrived in Australia (about 16 percent of the total intake).[50] Before World War II, 13.6 percent were born overseas, and 80 percent of those were British.[51] In 1939 and 1945, still 98 percent of Australians had British/Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins.[52] Until 1947, the vast majority of the population were of British origin.[53] During the 1950s, Australia was the destination of 30 per cent of Dutch emigrants and the Netherlands-born became numerically the second largest non-British group in Australia.[54] In 1971, 70 percent of the foreign born were of European origin. Abolition of the White Australia Policy in 1957 led to a significant increase in non-European immigration, mostly from Asia and the Middle East.[citation needed]

Asian

At the 2016 census, there were 3,514,915 nominations of ancestries classified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as falling within the geographical categories of East Asia, Southeast Asia and Central and Southern Asia.[55] This represents 16.15 percent of persons who nominated their ancestry.[56] 2,665,814 persons claimed one of the six most commonly nominated Asian ancestries, namely Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean and Sri Lankan, at the 2016 census.[57] Persons claiming one of these six ancestries alone represented 12.25 percent of the total population who nominated their ancestry.[57][A]

Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean and Sri Lankan are the most commonly nominated Asian ancestries in Australia.[57] Chinese Australians constituted 5.6 percent of the Australian population and Indian Australians constituted 2.8 percent at the 2016 census.

Dispersing across the Australian continent over time, the ancient peoples expanded and differentiated into hundreds of distinct groups, each with its own language and culture.[62] More than 400 distinct Australian Aboriginal peoples have been identified across the continent, distinguished by unique names designating their ancestral languages, dialects, or distinctive speech patterns.[63]

In 1770, fearing he had been pre-empted by the French, James Cook changed a hilltop signal-drill on Possession Island in Torres Strait, into a possession ceremony, fabricating Britain's claim of Australia's east coast.[64] Eighteen years later, the east coast was occupied by Britain and later the west coast was also settled by Britain. At that time, the indigenous population was estimated to have been between 315,000 and 750,000,[65] divided into as many as 500 tribes[citation needed] speaking many different languages.

At the 2016 census, 649,171 people (2.8% of the total population) identified as being Indigenous — Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders.[N 4][66] Indigenous Australians experience higher than average rates of imprisonment and unemployment, lower levels of education, and life expectancies for males and females that are, respectively, 11 and 17 years lower than those of non-indigenous Australians.[67][68][69] Some remote Indigenous communities have been described as having "failed state"-like conditions.[70]

Country of birth

In 2019, 30% of the Australian resident population, or 7,529,570 people, were born overseas.[21]

The Australian resident population consists of people who were born in the following countries:

Historical population

The data in the table is sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics[72][73] The population estimates do not include the Aboriginal population before 1961. Estimates of Aboriginal population prior to European settlement range from 300,000 to one million, with archaeological finds indicating a sustainable population of around 750,000.[74]

Citizenship

Australian citizenship did not exist before 26 January 1949. Before then, people born in Australia were British subjects. People born in Australia (including Norfolk Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island) on or after 20 August 1986 are Australian citizens by birth if at least one parent was an Australian citizen or a permanent resident at the time of the person's birth.[75]

Statistics do not exist as to the number of Australians who currently are dual citizens. In 2000, it was estimated to be 4 to 5 million people.[76]

Current population

The current Australian resident population is estimated at 25,847,000 (7 June 2020).[77] This does not include an estimated 1 million Australians living overseas, but it includes Australians born overseas. There are an estimated 1 million Australians (approximately 5 percent of the population) residing outside Australia. The Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement facilitates open migration to and from New Zealand.[78]

Culture

Language

Although Australia has no official language, English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language.[79]Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon,[80] and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling.[81]General Australian serves as the standard dialect.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2016 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 72.7 percent of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are:[82]

A considerable proportion of first- and second-generation migrants are bilingual.

Over 250 Indigenous Australian languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact, of which less than 20 are still in daily use by all age groups.[83][84] About 110 others are spoken exclusively by older people.[84] At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12 percent of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home.[85] Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 5,500 deaf people.[86]

Religion

Australians have various religions and spiritual beliefs. Majority (52.1 percent) were Christian, while 30.1 percent of the population reported as having no religion, of those reporting as having religious affiliations according to the 2016 census.[88] As in many Western countries, the level of active participation in church worship is lower than would be indicated by the proportion of the population identifying themselves as Christian; weekly attendance at church services was about 1.5 million in 2001,[89] about 7% of the population (21.5 million[90]) that year.

Notes

^As such, this represents the lowest possible proportion of the Australian population constituted by persons claiming an Asian ancestry as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

^The Australian Bureau of Statistics source lists England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately although they are all part of the United Kingdom. These should not be combined as they are not combined in the source.

^The Australian Bureau of Statistics source lists England and Scotland separately although they are both part of the United Kingdom. These should not be combined as they are not combined in the source.

^As a percentage of 21,769,209 persons who nominated their ancestry at the 2016 census. The Australian Census collects information on ancestry, but not on race or ethnicity.

^The Australian Bureau of Statistics has stated that most who nominate "Australian" as their ancestry are part of the Anglo-Celtic group.[31]

^Of any ancestry. Includes those identifying as Aboriginal Australians or Torres Strait Islanders. Indigenous identification is separate to the ancestry question on the Australian Census and persons identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander may identify any ancestry.

^Includes those identifying as Aboriginal Australians or Torres Strait Islanders. Indigenous identification is separate to the ancestry question on the Australian Census and persons identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander may identify any ancestry.

^"Minister for Immigration Arthur Calwell when he proclaimed in his speech to parliament announcing the 1948 Nationality and Citizenship Act that 'to say one is an Australian is, of course, to indicate beyond all doubt that one is British'." – A. Haebich, Spinning the Dream: Assimilation in Australia 1950–1970, 2008, p. 67

^McEvoy, Brian P., et al. "Geographical structure and differential natural selection among North European populations." Genome research 19.5 (2009): 804–814. "Approximately 85% of current Australians are descendants of European settlers who began arriving in 1788."

^"About Australia:Our Country". Australian Government. Australia's first inhabitants, the Aboriginal people, are believed to have migrated from some unknown point in Asia to Australia between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.